


Little Bit of Heartburn

by flowersalesman



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/F, bi disaster eleanor, chidi's full of anxiety, danny devito is mentioned and thats a threat, unknowing lesbian tahani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22072471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersalesman/pseuds/flowersalesman
Summary: Tahani was a bitch, but apparently she was also Eleanor's soulmate.Which means that now they have to be friends. Great.
Relationships: Chidi Anagonye & Eleanor Shellstrop, Chidi Anagonye & Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza, Tahani Al-Jamil/Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 6
Kudos: 141





	Little Bit of Heartburn

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully my supervisor doesnt walk behind me because im at work oops
> 
> anyway i love tgp but i dont actually read any tgp fanfic so i have no hecking idea how many people have already written something like this. im assuming there are many other fics exactly like this one. dont @ me.
> 
> if anyone has any suggestions for what to tag this please tell me, i dont know any tags at all
> 
>  **disclaimer:** i have not seen the most recent season dont talk to me about it

The door swung open, and the most beautiful woman Eleanor had ever seen stood on the other side.

“Why  _ hello,”  _ said the gorgeous woman posing on the doorframe. “Did someone say  _ soulmate?” _

Michael clapped his hands together. “Yes, I  _ did  _ just say ‘Eleanor, meet your soulmate.’ And here you are! What a coincidence!”

Eleanor thought his smile seemed a little strained. Michael seemed like a strange guy in general, though, so maybe that’s just what nice people were like. Smiling all the time.

When Eleanor smiled, it was a step off from genuine. It was aided with the very real giddiness of having such a damn attractive soulmate.

_ “Hello  _ yourself,” she said. She set a hand on her hip and reached out with her other hand to mirror the pose her soulmate pulled, but there was no wall to lean on, so she nearly fell over. Eleanor very cleanly brushed the hand through her hair, very smoothly, as if she meant to do that all along, and she pulled it off perfectly.

“Are you feeling alright?” Hot Soulmate asked. “I think you had an odd spasm there.”

_ “Ha,”  _ Eleanor said. She showed more teeth, making her smile wider. “You’re so... funny. I’m so glad I have such a  _ hilarious  _ soulmate. What did you say your name was?”

_ “Oh,  _ silly me, I forgot to introduce the two of you,” Michael interrupted. The look on his face was one of pure glee. “Eleanor, this is Tahani. Tahani, I already told you about Eleanor before you came in. I’m so happy that the two of you are off to a great start!”

“Yes, I’m sure we’ll be  _ such  _ good friends! We’ll be able to- to talk, and exchange hosting tips.” That was all Tahani seemed to have on the idea of friendship. She cleared her throat after realizing that there probably wasn’t anything else to socialization. “You have such a...  _ cute  _ little cottage here! Very quaint, very adorable, just like you, of course. Oh,  _ where  _ are my manners- I live in the mansion next door. You can visit me any time!”

She stepped forward to give Eleanor a hug, and Eleanor couldn’t even enjoy the fact that Tahani’s height meant her face was right in her boobs.

Tahani was a  _ bitch,  _ and Eleanor had no idea what she did to deserve this.

—————

Being accepted into literal paradise wasn’t something Chidi should be worrying about. In fact, from what he knows, that was the last place anyone should be worrying about  _ anything.  _

Leave it up to him to find something anxiety inducing.

Across from him, his soulmate raised another spoonful of plain vanilla froyo to his mouth. The clerk behind the counter had to guess at what he wanted- Taiwanese monks, as far as anyone knew, didn’t have strong opinions on the flavor of froyo they got.

“So, Jianyu,” Chidi started, “you’re... a monk?”

There was a pause. Jianyu swallowed his froyo and nodded.

“And you took a vow of silence?”

Jianyu nodded again. Chidi nodded too.

“That’s, uh, that’s pretty cool.” Oh, god, were his armpits sweaty? Was his face sweaty? He was probably soaking already. “I- I once heard that some people took a vow of silence because they believed that they’d be able to- oh, um, well, I guess I shouldn’t impose any other beliefs I’ve heard on you, I mean I  _ guess  _ I’ve extensively studied some of this stuff for...  _ forovertenyears  _ but- anyway. Never mind. Pretend I wasn’t talking.”

Across from him, Jianyu blinked. His expression hadn’t changed much, except for a distant haze in his eyes that Chidi didn’t find too unusual. That was a look people generally got during conversations. Whether it was because of him or his subject matter, he never figured out.

“I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d end up with... a _guy.”_ Chidi stopped and waved his hands frantically. “Not to say that I think it’s _weird-_ gay relationships aren’t weird at all, I mean I guess we don’t have to be _romantic_ soulmates- I mean, ha ha, you’re a monk, you can probably only be platonic, right- and there I go assuming things again _oh god-”_

Luckily, Jianyu didn’t seem too offended. He had already finished half of his froyo; Chidi had barely started on his.

“It’s just- can I talk to you about something?” 

The glint in Jianyu’s eyes said  _ of course, I am but a mirror to submit your worries. What you see reflected will be the answer to your troubles. _

He was so  _ deep.  _ Chidi couldn’t help but admire him. It took six years for his parents to understand what he was studying, even after he tried to explain it multiple times, but Jianyu could convey such a complex thought with barely a glance.

“So I’ve thought about this before, right? In, like, high school. About my- uh- my sexuality. And logically I  _ know  _ that we’re probably platonic soulmates but I don’t want to assume anything about our relationship, and I  _ thought  _ I was straight but-”

“Here he is,” said the robot- artificial helper?- named Janet. Chidi jumped and screamed.

“Ha, wow, I didn’t even sound like that when I was  _ eight,”  _ a blonde woman snarked behind Janet. “How’s puberty coming along?”

“Um,” Chidi said. “Sorry, who are you?”

The woman sidled closer to him, barely sparing a glance toward Jianyu. She cupped a hand around her mouth in case anyone was trying to listen in.

“My name is Eleanor Shellstrop,” she whispered, “and I have a  _ huge  _ favor to ask of you.”

—————

The clown paintings were, admittedly, a little unnerving. Not quite as unnerving as Eleanor, but close.

Speaking of which, he had a decision to make. Which was the  _ worst  _ news. The moment Eleanor opened her mouth his stomach started hurting in preparation for whatever she was going to say. By the end he was about ready to vomit.

“That’s a lot to take in,” he choked out.

“Yeah, I  _ know.”  _ Eleanor swept her arm out, gesturing to the room. “I mean, come on, we’re in paradise and I get a  _ shirty clown house?  _ Shirty, I mean.  _ Shirty _ . God, I fudging hate this.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ bad,” Chidi told her weakly.

She stood swiftly and paced around the room.

“Oh, it is  _ definitely  _ that bad. I wasn’t a- a  _ lawyer  _ or whatever, I  _ hate  _ clowns, and my birch of a soulmate  _ clearly  _ thinks that she's just so much better than me because she has a goshdarn  _ mansion!  _ She straight up mocked my shirty clown house! Can you  _ believe  _ that?” Eleanor stopped in front of a stool and dropped on it. “I swear, I didn't do anything to deserve this.”

“Actually, it sounds like you did a lot of things,” Chidi told her, mildly apologetic. He tended to be apologetic at any hint of confrontation.

“Are you kidding? What could I  _ possibly  _ have done to deserve a soulmate as rude as- as  _ her?  _ I am a  _ very  _ nice person. Can you imagine anyone thinking that what's-her-name- Tahini- would be a good match for me?"

"Yes," Chidi answered without hesitation. "I can absolutely imagine that."

"Yeah. well." Eleanor's voice faltered. All her immediate anger got used up, to his relief. "Well, she thinks we're just friends anyway. Psh. As if there's such thing as  _ platonic  _ soulmates."

He cleared his throat, and for the first time since they got there, Eleanor finally looked him in the face. "Well, uh, I think there are? Maybe." 

"Who told you that?"

"Um." Chidi wrung his hands together. "Someone? I think?"

"Was it Janet? Or Michael?"

"No, it was someone else who lived in the neighborhood. Oh, god, what if they're wrong." He leaned over, cradling his head in his hands.  _ "Ooooh _ no, my stomach hurts."

"Okay," Eleanor said unsympathetically. "Cool. You going to help me or not?"

Chidi stood up and put his hands on his hips. It was a power stance he learned from a seminar he took, after becoming a professor and gaining the incredible fear that his students would never take him seriously. It faltered slightly, only because it was hard to stand straight with a painful stomach.

"I... don't know," he said, strongly, with a strong voice.

That was also taught at the seminar.

"What do you mean you don't  _ know?" _

"Listen, Eleanor, from what you have told me, you absolutely do not belong here. You aren't a nice person! And- and you have a soulmate, and a house, and- whatever, and what if those were meant for a different person? What if there's someone  _ good  _ out there taking your spot in The Bad Place?"

"There isn't," she insisted.

"But what if there  _ is?" _

"Then I still don't deserve to be there!" She stood from her stool and went over to Chidi, mirroring his power stance. "I know I don't belong in The Good Place, but I also know that I don't deserve to be tortured for eternity. So just help me act good, and everyone's happy."

Her mockery of his pose was unnerving, but he kept himself together. He clapped his hands and held them in front of his mouth.

"What are you doing?" Eleanor asked.

"Thinking. This is my thinking face."

Thankfully, Eleanor stayed silent, even if she went to crossing her arms and glaring at him. It was easy to spin around to avoid her stare. Though she kept on moving to try and catch his eyes.

"Okay," he finally sighed. "Okay. I- I don't want to condemn anyone to being tortured, but I kind of also don't want to... help you. Without being assured that you can actually do good things. So just- help me here. Convince me that you're able to do good."

Eleanor stared at him with wide eyes then scoffed. "What does that even mean? 'Do good?' How do I prove that I maybe do good sometimes?"

"I don't know! Stop calling me names, for one!"

"Nice try, nerd," she said.

"I am doing as best I can here, Eleanor," he told her. "Make small talk, be polite, make some- actually, wait. Yeah. I got it."

Eleanor narrowed her eyes at him. "What?"

"Prove to me you’re a good person. Make friends with that soulmate who you think is being rude. Then maybe I'll help you."

—————

_ “Make friends,  _ he says,” Eleanor muttered, walking on the stony path outside her house.  _ “Be a good person,  _ he says. Oh, like  _ he  _ has any right to tell me what a ‘good person’ is. And it’s not like being nice to  _ Toucani  _ is going to make me want to- stop eating hamburgers. Or something.  _ No one  _ could ever convince me to be a ve-”

“Oh, Eleanor!” a sickly sweet voice called out nearby. “Fancy meeting you here! I suppose we really are  _ fated  _ to be together, aren’t we?”

Eleanor looked up from where she was fuming at cobblestones, fixed smile on her face.

“Ah ha, yes,” she said convincingly,  _ “fated. _ It’s almost as if we’re soulmates. Or that we live right next to each other. It couldn’t  _ possibly  _ be a coincidence.”

Tahooni gave a few  _ ha ha ha _ s, about as convincing as Eleanor's. "Oh, oh  _ course  _ not. I am so glad that we're on the same page! Actually, it’s good that I caught you here." She folded her hands on the skirt of her dress and politely bowed her head. "I was actually planning to host a welcoming dinner for everyone in the Neighborhood tonight, and I was hoping you could come. Actually, maybe we can walk back to my house together, and finish planning it! Like  _ soulmates! _ Wouldn't that be fun?"

Her hands clapped together to emphasize her point, and Eleanor was  _ so close _ to coming up with a bullshirt excuse, to be able to get away and take a few more hours to be angry at her situation.

But maybe this was her chance. She could hang around Tatiani once, tell Chudi they were the bestest of friends, and he could teach her to be a good person so she could fit in and not be banished to The Bad Place. It was a flawless plan. No one would ever be the wiser.

—————

"That was literally the worst thing I've ever seen," Chidi said the next morning, once all the evil had been banished and he’d forcefully volunteered them for trash duty.

"I have no idea what you mean," Eleanor told him, lying through her teeth. She poked harshly at some stray confetti.

"Last night, once we got back to your house, you tried to tell me you and Tahani were friends despite the fact that you  _ still  _ don't know her name.  _ Then-" _

"Oh, we're gonna list out  _ all  _ my failures now, are we?"

"Yes.  _ Then  _ we wake up this morning, and we're all wearing weird jumpsuits, and our names are all printed out on them in very large letters, except they were spelled wrong. Did you  _ really  _ think my name was Chudi?"

"No," Eleanor said. The lies were still whistling through. She stabbed at the confetti harder

Chidi narrowed his eyes at her, unconvinced. "Okay. Sure. And you  _ also  _ didn’t steal all the shrimp and stuff them in your bra."

She held up a hand to stop him. "Now, alright, I  _ did  _ do that, I’ll admit."

"You didn't even try to talk to Tahani. You just put up some decorations, ruined some of her wallpaper, and made a mess of everything."

"Have  _ you  _ ever tried to talk to Tahini?"

"Tahani, and yes."

"It's just  _ so difficult," _ Eleanor continued, as if he hadn't said anything. "At the party, I said  _ hi, _ and that's it. Nothing else. And you know what she did?"

Chidi waited. She didn't say anything.

"What?" he asked.

"She talked at me for  _ thirty minutes!”  _ she yelled, almost before he finished speaking. “About Robin Williams! What kind of  _ birch  _ brings up personal stories about Robin Williams like that? And, what, because I'm her  _ soulmate  _ I'm supposed to let her walk all over me like that?"

"Again, you might not even be her soulmate," Chidi said. "It's very possible that Tahani was meant to be with someone else."

"Then why do I still have to make friends with her?"

He sighed, dragging his hand down his face.  _ “Again, _ I  _ need _ proof that you're a good person. If you're able to be friendly with someone you don't like on a surface level, then that's good enough for me. Just show me that you're able to connect with other human beings. Please. I’m begging you.”

He went back to properly sweeping the ground, leaving Eleanor to grumble and sweep trash under rugs.

—————

Getting into Tahani’s mansion was a non-issue.  _ Finding  _ Tahani in her mansion proved to be the harder problem to solve.

The entire building was a jungle of opulence, less of a home and more of a shrine to how much one could own. It was an offering to the ways of the excess. It was an example of how someone with millions could change the lives of hundreds, if they so chose, and the decision to spend that money on useless trinkets evoked a vague feeling of disgust.

Eleanor was  _ so jealous.  _ Her house was too small to get lost in. Where was the fairness in  _ that. _

She stumbled on another sitting room with a pseudo-victorian vibe, each corner lined with gold. The couched looked too expensive to touch.

She collapsed on it face first, rubbing her sweaty face in the starchy fabric. Walking for 20 minutes was a bad idea. Tahani probably wasn’t even home- more than likely she was out schmoozing with everyone else, getting in their good graces. Like a witch. Who wanted to make friends.

Disgusting.

“Eleanor?” a syrupy British voice said, mildly surprised, to her right. “When  _ did  _ you get here? Did you knock?”

Eleanor turned her head, dreading the sight of Tahani, sitting pristinely on the adjacent couch. Her eyes were wide and her perfect eyebrows only slightly higher than where they usually were.

"I  _ did  _ actually knock," Eleanor said. "But this place is so big I was afraid you couldn't hear me. So I just kinda walked in."

Tahani tittered like there was a joke somewhere. "Oh, dear, you're so  _ funny. _ You really could've just rung the doorbell."

_ Then why did you ask if I knocked, _ Eleanor didn't say.

"Ha, yeah, silly me," she unenthusiastically told her instead. "Well. I'm here now. I figured that since we're, uh, soulmates or whatever, we should...  _ hang out  _ more often.”

To her surprise, Tahani's face visibly lit up, and her hands clapped together excitedly.

"Oh, yes! Of course! We haven't seen much of each other, have we? To be busy even in the afterlife- my, how things turn out."

Eleanor sat up and rubbed her cheek. "Yep. Exactly. We both just happen to be... so busy. It's hard to find... quality time together." That's what normal friends did, right? Spend quality time together? That sounds reasonable. Great job, Eleanor, you did it again.

"Well." Tahani cleared her throat. "I have some, ah, amusing stories to share, if you want to hear them. And then you can tell me yours!"

If she didn't know better, Eleanor would've thought that  _ neither  _ of them have had real friends before. But that was clearly impossible for Tahani.

"Sure," she said. "Sounds good to me."

She just had to hear some Neat Stories and then they'd be friends. And Chidi would teach her about philosophy or whatever. Nothing could go wrong.

\--

Everything went wrong.

Not with the plan, but with the assumption that Eleanor was capable of listening and absorbing everything Tahani could possibly say. The woman name dropped any famous person she could think of, and a few more she couldn't. It was a thinly veiled brag about how worldly she was. About how far she could throw herself into the circle of rich people.

Luckily, Eleanor didn't get any chance to talk. There were many times where she was  _ so close _ to biting back at Tahani, to try and tear her down to force her on the same level. It had been thirty minutes of torture.

"-and  _ that's  _ when Hozier told me- oh, are you alright, Eleanor? You're drooling."

Eleanor darted up from where she was slumping over, startled back to awareness. "Uhh- yeah? Yeah, I'm great. Just, you know. Chillin'."

Tahani scooted forward in her seat. There was still a faux-worried look in her eyes. "Maybe I've been... talking too long? I can always tell you what Hozier said to me later. I suppose I have to keep  _ some  _ stories for the future, right?"

"Right," Eleanor agreed, not comprehending anything she was saying.

"Does this mean it's... your turn to talk?" Tahani set one shiny nail on her chin in thought. "That's how this works, I think. Did you have anything interesting to say?"

_ Why does she have to be so hot,  _ Eleanor mourned for the millionth time. Life was always incredibly unfair.

"One time I exploded an egg in the microwave," she said. That was the most impressive story she had. She needed to defeat Tahani in some way since verbally smashing her was off the table.

Tahani’s smile changed- not in size, but the muscles on her face tensed and the wrinkles around her eyes smoothed out. “Is... is that right. That’s. Nice. I must say, my parents would  _ never  _ have let me do something so destructive when I was growing up.”

Eleanor reached over and patted her on the shoulder, then knowingly said, “You must have had some shirty parents.” She did not mention the fact that she exploded that egg when she was 22 and years away from her parents.

Tahani laughed and waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I wouldn’t quite call them  _ shirty.”  _ It’s painfully clear that she didn’t try to say anything other than shirty. “They were good people, I suppose. They donated a decent portion of their income to charity, and started a few non-profit organizations themselves.”

“Doesn’t mean they weren’t shirty parents,” Eleanor said. “My mom once gave an ice-cream cone to some random six-year-old, but that didn’t mean she was a good mom. Or a good person. Actually she did that because they gave her the wrong flavor and said I was annoying her.”

She was expecting one of the regular responses from this- a shallow  _ oh no that’s horrible,  _ maybe with a flavor of  _ how could your mother be like this.  _ The assurances of someone who didn’t know how to deal with bad childhoods.

What she didn’t expect was for Tahani to say, “My mother was a little like that, too.”

The look on Eleanor’s face—wide eyes, wide mouth—made her backtrack.

“No, no, not exactly like that,” Tahani said. “I mean, my mother- both my parents, really- were. Perfectionists?”

She looked to Eleanor, almost for approval. Eleanor nodded for her to go on, crossing her legs and leaning back into the couch. Things were getting  _ interesting,  _ and if she was delving deep into Tahani’s Dark Secrets, then she might have the chance to one u- wait, make friends. Yes. Friendship was the goal.

For now.

“I have a little sister,” Tahani continued. “Or had, I suppose, since I’ve passed on now. There were quite a few...  _ metaphorical  _ ice-cream cones.”

_ “Do  _ go on,” Eleanor prompted.

“It’s just-” Oh, and  _ there  _ was the emotion Eleanor was waiting for,  _ fantastic,  _ “-she was always so much  _ better  _ than me, you know? And she  _ knew  _ it, and our parents knew it, and I tried  _ all my life  _ to make sure that I was  _ good  _ enough for them and then they died and I still-"

She cut herself off. The blotchy red that took over her face evened out, and traced back to her neck. Tahani blinked moist eyes at Eleanor.

For some reason, Eleanor felt a little guilty.

"I'm sorry," Tahani said. "It seems there wasn't much ice-cream in my story at all."

"It's fine," Eleanor told her. "Looks like your parents were rich  _ and  _ shirty, is all. Let me guess- they often asked why you couldn't be more like your sister, said everything you did was wrong or not good enough, and you and your sister grew up resenting each other because your shirty parents pitted the two of you together."

Tahani laughed wetly. "That's- that's exactly how it was. How'd you know?"

"My dad used to do something like that with me and Danny Devito."

When Tahani straight up  _ giggled,  _ face bright and still hot as heck, Eleanor figured that becoming friends wasn’t as terrible a fate as she thought.

(Even though thinking about becoming friends with Tahani gave her some sort of weird heartburn. That was an issue for future Eleanor to worry about.)

**Author's Note:**

> there will probably be another chapter! im working on it anyway. might take another year.


End file.
